Een mooi einde aan deze serie. Ik heb ervan genoten, maar vind echt dat de Keizerrijk-serie en de serie van de Oorlog van de Grote Scheuring beter zijn. De plot is soms wat ongeloofwaardig, maar de karakters vind ik echt heel erg leuk en de vaart bleef er goed in. Al met al het herlezen waard. ( )

Essentially a book-length epilogue to the epic confrontation in "Rage of a Demon King", this book bothered me more the more I thought about it. While not overtly unpleasant to read, everything about it is disappointing.

It had the potential to be really interesting: a story of trying to rebuild a devastated land in the midst of a three-way war. Feist could have combined the military story of Erik von Darkmoor, the economic story of Roo Avery and the political story of Krondor's ruling nobility into a story of the compromises and struggles needed to restore peace and prosperity.

Instead, it was a largely pointless exercise in box-checking, in which the main characters are largely passive. The economic and political recovery of the Western Realm just sort of happens on its own, with protagonists only supporting characters. Most of the book is taken up with desperate struggles, but all of them are rendered moot in the end when a group of demigods finally decide to get off their asses and resolve everything in a massive deus ex machina.

Feist kills off characters repeatedly, but their deaths seldom have meaning. Instead, they only serve to remove from the table characters who were just beginning to become interesting, and who matter mostly in their absence. Instead, the surviving characters are largely reactive. The most dynamic character in the series, Roo, is left on the sidelines except for one brief episode mid-book.

The villains remain as off-screen and flat as they were in "Rage of a Demon King," but this fault is more egregious since the demonic-control justification for that struggle had already been removed in the prior book. But instead of letting the former invaders struggle with the enormity of the crimes they were forced to commit as they try to establish a home for themselves in the new land they've partially conquered, Feist just reestablishes new mystical command, sort of a junior varsity army of darkness. The evil plot comes largely out of nowhere in the final act of the book, and is resolved almost as quickly as it's introduced with little help from the characters we've spent most of the book following.

As for the political plotline of the invasion from Kesh, we're treated to some second-rate skullduggery and lots of hamhanded blustering from the mouth of Patrick, the new Prince of Krondor, who is uniformly dismissed as incompetent and over his head (if generally decent). General Duko had the potential to be fascinating, an invader who cuts a deal with his enemies and has to balance his own interests against his new masters, his old masters and Kesh in a delicate power play. Instead he's instantly identified as trustworthy, and never gives anyone any reason to doubt this assessment.

Largely this book exists to wrap up loose ends from the first three books in the Serpentwar series, and to lay the groundwork for the series to follow, about which Feist seems indefinitely more interested than he does in the bland plot points he has to tick off in this book to get there.

If you've read the first three books in the series, you might as well read this one, but it's a letdown through and through. ( )

A great ending to the Serpentwar Saga. Stop here. The stories continue, but they go downhill. ( )

These last two Feist novels have been rather wonderful, a return to the grand epic-style stakes and battles that drew me to the writer in the beginning. The aftermath of the Serpentwar mainly focused on the fate of the survivors from all over the place scrambling to take control of the rubble and while we follow some rather sympathetic characters in this, INCLUDING a ton of Pug, I found a ton action and intrigue to love.

But more importantly, and other than the big battles, I particularly loved the reveals about the gods. And the results of our long-lived characters' choices. This kind of thing is both very satisfying and sets up the rest of the series for some really spectacular blowouts.

Mad gods, sleeping gods, new avatars, new religions... it's all great. But I particularly love how lawless this place has become. And Pug's final decision. And I agree with him. Screw them all. :) Not worth it. :)

It's going to be a wild time in the rebuilding. :) ( )

This was the fourth and final book in the Serpentwar Saga, one subseries in the middle of Feist’s very large Riftwar Cycle. I think I enjoyed this one the best out of the books in this subseries. This is an ensemble book, but the two grandsons of Jimmy the Hand get a large chunk of the page time and I really enjoyed them, both separately and together.

The story held my attention well, although I think that was as much because I was invested in the characters as it was because of the story. There’s a pattern to these books that causes me to roll my eyes a little bit more in each book. I enjoy the writing and the characters and the stories, but I’m also hoping Feist will find some new types of stories to tell in the later books or I can imagine reaching a point where I get tired of it.

I have some notes on the reading order in the unlikely event that somebody who’s trying to decide how to read this series happens to randomly run across this review for a book right smack in the middle of the entire series. This book was published in early 1998, before Krondor: The Betrayal, the first book in the next subseries, which was published later that same year. Sounds logical so far, right? However, this book takes place later chronologically then Krondor: The Betrayal. Ok, well, sometimes authors do that, so what? Well, Krondor: The Betrayal is based on a video game that was released in 1993. This book therefore has several references to and spoilers for the events in Krondor: The Betrayal, because that story already existed in a video game format when this book was written, even though that story hadn’t yet been published as a book. This whole mishmash is further complicated by the author’s revised edition of Prince of the Blook from the subseries before this one. That book was originally published before even the game, but it now makes references to events in that game due to being revised at a later date. If I were ever to read through this series again, I think I would do it in chronological order instead. The first time I read these books, I did read them in chronological order based on some random list I had found on the internet and I think the story flowed better that way.

I have a couple other things to discuss inside the spoiler tags…
Regarding the repetitive plot elements, this seems to be the basic story that is repeated throughout the books: The Kingdom, or at least the Western portion of it, is threatened by a big, bad, overwhelming enemy. There’s a major bloodbath as the sides clash. There are also inevitably a few deaths of critical secondary characters for emotional impact. Nevertheless, the Kingdom manages to just barely stay ahead of total destruction thanks to courageous and clever leaders. Meanwhile, the powerful magicians are either missing or unwilling to help for one reason or another, but they manage to show up in time to fight the big, bad supernatural creature that’s the source of all the trouble. This serves to end the fighting and/or they might get involved to help end the remaining petty squabbles before gathering together for a final companionable chat.

I had somewhat mixed feelings about Dash becoming the Upright Man at the end, but I think I liked it overall. My main worry is that this will lead to conflict between Dash and his brother Jimmy who has chosen to continue serving the crown. I’m guessing Dash probably won’t tell Jimmy, but it may come out sooner or later. The camaraderie between the two is one of the things I really enjoyed in this book, and I’ve never particularly liked seeing a good fictional friendship become estranged or develop tension. I haven’t yet read any of the books that are set chronologically after this one, so I’m curious to find out where things go with that storyline in the future. I think the next 7 books were all set prior to this subseries though, so it may be a while before I get there.

One more thing: Prince Patrick is annoying! I miss Prince Arutha. ( )